The Consummate Horseman
Max Hirsch went from being a stowaway on a horse train to becoming one of the great trainers of all time
By Brien Bouyea
Thoroughbred racing was Max Hirsch’s fountain of youth. For close to 70 years, spanning the presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt to Richard Nixon, Hirsch was one of the most accomplished and respected trainers in America. Late in his life, while still among the elite in his profession, Hirsch was asked the secret of his longevity and prosperity in racing.
“Being in this sport keeps you young,” Hirsch said. “There’s always another colt, another filly, to train … you always look to tomorrow. There are always more races to run, and you live in hope of winning your share of them.”
Maximilian Justice Hirsch certainly won his share of them — and then some. Hirsch won a total of nine Triple Crown races, including a sweep of the series in 1946 with Assault, and trained numerous champions in his distinguished career.
Born in 1880 in Fredericksburg, Texas, a town his German immigrant parents helped settle, Hirsch was riding horses in local fairs by the age of 10. A couple years later, Hirsch stowed away in a shipment of racehorses bounds for Baltimore in hopes of becoming a jockey.
“It was a hot day, and I was barefooted. Suddenly the urge hit me,” Hirsch said. “I had to go with the horses. So, clad in blue jeans and without a word to my parents, I climbed aboard a freight car with the horses and was off to Baltimore.”
Hirsch found work in the stable of legendary trainer R. Wyndham Walden, who won the Preakness seven times and the Belmont four times in his Hall of Fame career. Thanks to his small frame, Hirsch was given a shot in the irons. He won his first race as a jockey on July 9, 1895 at Brighton Beach in New York aboard a horse named Gutta Percha in a one-mile selling race. Hirsch had decent success as a rider, winning 123 races from 1,117 mounts, before a growth spurt necessitated a change in his career path.
“The only reason I became a trainer of horses was when I hung up my tack as a jockey, there was nothing else I could do to make a dollar,” Hirsch said. “All of my life had been spent around horses.”
Hirsch registered his first victory as a trainer on March 21, 1902 at Fair Grounds in New Orleans, winning a $300 purse with Guatama. It took Hirsch several years before he was able to get any horses of high quality in his barn. His fist good one was a colt named Papp, who won the Sanford Memorial, Futurity, Flash and United States Hotel stakes in 1917.
Some of the sport’s top owners began to notice Hirsch. He trained for the likes of Arthur B. Hancock, Sr., Virginia Fair Vanderbilt, George W. Loft and John A. Morris, among others. Hirsch even had some horses owned by the gangster and gambler Arnold Rothstein. When the stewards in New York questioned Hirsch about his association with the Trainer Max Hirsch pictured here with Assault. notorious Rothstein, the trainer responded that he was solely responsible for the conduct of every horse in his stable. That ended the discussion; Hirsch’s reputation for honesty and integrity were beyond reproach.
For Vanderbilt, Hirsch trained his first great horse, Sarazen. A cranky gelding, Sarazen won 27 races in his Hall of Fame career, including the Manhattan, Dixie and Metropolitan handicaps, as well as International Special No. 3 against French champion Epinard in 1924. Sarazen was Horse of the Year in 1924 and 1925.
Hirsch won the Belmont Stakes for the first of four times with Vito in 1928. In 1936, Hirsch won both the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes with Bold Venture. After he was retired, Bold Venture was purchased by Robert J. Kleberg’s King Ranch for stallion duty at his Texas farm. Hirsch began training for King Ranch, and in 1945 was entrusted with the conditioning of a fragile a 2-year-old colt by Bold Venture named Assault. Plagued with injuries and illnesses from the start, Assault didn’t look the part of a great racehorse. Before he made it to the track, Assault stepped on what is believed to have been a surveyor’s spike at King Ranch. The spike pierced through Assault’s right front hoof, deforming the hoof and leading to a pronounced limp.
The limp, however, was never apparent when Assault ran. Throughout his career, Assault also dealt with kidney, fetlock and knee problems. Dubbed “The Club-footed Comet,” Assault presented a challenge for Hirsch, but the trainer was up for the task. Assault only won two of nine starts as a juvenile in 1945, but he showed his greatness the following year when he became America’s seventh Triple Crown winner. Assault’s victories that year also included the Wood Memorial, Dwyer Stakes, Westchester Handicap and Pimlico Special.
Hirsch won the Derby and Belmont again in 1950 with King Ranch’s Middleground, another son of Bold Venture. Hirsch won the Belmont for a fourth time in 1954 with High Gun, champion as both a 3-year-old and as older male the following year.
In 1959, Hirsch received racing’s highest honor when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame. However, he showed no signs of slowing down. In 1968, Hirsch was credited with training his 100th stakes winner and had the outstanding filly Gallant Bloom in his barn. That year, at the age of 88, Hirsch had his most successful year from an earnings standpoint. His $914,356 in purses led all trainers in New York and trailed only Eddie Neloy ($1,233,101) nationally.
Hirsch died on April 3, 1969. Only hours earlier, his filly Heartland won the feature race at Aqueduct. Although some of the records for Hirsch’s early training years are incomplete, he won 1,933 verified races with purse earnings of $12,203,270.
“He showed us how to race,” Kleberg said. “He had the character, guts and heart of the greatest sportsmen. The last horse he ran won. That’s what he came from, and that’s what he had. He ran his best all the way.”
One of Hirsch’s three sons, Buddy, took over as the head trainer for King Ranch upon his father’s death and went on to his own Hall of Fame career (inducted in 1982). One of Hirsch’s two daughters, Mary, also earned a notable place in racing history. The trailblazing Mary Hirsch became the first woman to receive a license to train from The Jockey Club. She remains the lone woman to win the historic Travers Stakes, accomplishing the feat with Thanksgiving in 1938. Brien Bouyea is the communications director of communications at the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. He is also the author of ‘Bare Knuckles & Saratoga Racing: The Remarkable Life of John Morrissey.”